


a little bit clearer

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Ambiguity, Gen, M/M, Rain, Tour Bus, Welcome to the Midwest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7068058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How did you know?" Dan asks as they hurry into the lobby.<br/>Phil rolls his eyes and collapses the umbrella, shaking it out onto the welcome mat as he says simply, "Weather app, Dan. You have one too."</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little bit clearer

**Author's Note:**

> because the boys were in my city yesterday and it's been raining a lot recently.
> 
> (that's minneapolis btw, that's where this takes place. if u were at the show i hate u and am super jealous)
> 
> (i was so close to naming this purple rain and i wanna apologize for that. actually its a lyric from "[sweet darlin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlzHGqMd6dk)'" by she & him)

Dan had been looking forward to getting off the bus all day and was extremely disappointed to find that the second he did, it started raining. They stopped at the hotel, emptying out into parking lot, and Phil pulls a little pocket umbrella out of nowhere before opening it over just as it starts pouring.

"How did you know?" Dan asks as they hurry into the lobby.

Phil rolls his eyes and collapses the umbrella, shaking it out onto the welcome mat as he says simply, "Weather app, Dan. You have one too."

Instead of rolling his eyes, Dan nods and rolls his suitcase in front of him to the front desk. The woman behind it glances outside at their bus before looking back at him with one eyebrow raised. Dan sheepishly shrugs and hands her his credit card as Martyn and Phil roll in, pulling behind them three more suitcases. 

"Do we really need all those right now?" Dan asks.

"Wii, Dan." Phil seems to be very interested in short sentences, but Dan doesn't blame him. They've been stuck on the bus for six hours of nothingness and fields, probably everyone there would kill for some Nintendo right about now.

The hostess-desk-lady-whatever-she's-called hands Dan their key cards and they trudge over to the elevator as one bedraggled, numb-limbed horde. The carpet inside smells damp, but Dan can't really tell the difference between the people around him and the elevator itself.

Up in their room, shoes are immediately kicked off, umbrella thrown in the corner, and Phil is face down on the bed before the door even closes. Dan chuckles—well, internally. He's way too tired to actually make any sound.

"I thought we were gonna explore the city?" Dan gently nudges him with the phone in his hand, open to the oh-so-useful aforementioned weather app. There's a thunderstorm warning for most of the city, but apparently there's a few sunny corners here and there. They should probably visit one of those lakes there's supposed to be like a thousand of here, or do something arty; as long as it isn't a bus, Dan's down for it.

Phil groans and rolls over, swatting at the phone. He perks up at the thought of going somewhere that's not a bus or hotel.

"What did you have in mind?"

A few seconds more of scrolling and Dan settles on a few good things. "How good is that umbrella of yours?"

<+>

Apparently it's not that good at all; the second a breeze hits them from off the river, it folded like a house of cards. They ran for the train, out of the wind, and rode around for awhile while Phil gets a new high score on Crossy Road. They picked up another one at a bookshop, get stuck there for a few minutes, then run for the hills when they find the "YouTube Personalities" section. After that they wander back down towards the river, rain trickling gently down the side of the plastic.

This is kind of nice. It feels exactly like home; a different river, different rain, different umbrella, but the same feeling.

When he mentions that much to Phil, he tilts his head at him curiously. "Is this gonna lead to some profound find about how 'home is a feeling not a place' or something like that?"

Rolling his eyes, Dan nudges Phil's shoulder with his own and angles the umbrella so water starts dripping onto his glasses. Phil splutters and shoves at him until he gives back control of the umbrella and steers them towards the park they just passed.

"What are we doing?" Dan asks, but willingly follows. The grass is soaking wet and Phil almost slips a few times on the way up the hill, but they manage. At the top is a bench in between a few green trees, where the rain only drips through a few places here and there. They collapse the umbrella and Dan brushes the wet leaves off the bench with the sleeve of his sweater.

From the top of the hill they can see everything: the blue theater next door; the kids climbing on the big metal sign in the front of the park; people, walking and on bikes, crossing the bridge. A train rattle past in the background, carrying over the sound of the raindrops hitting the canopy of leaves above them, and a family rushes from the door of the ice cream place to the door of their car, hands shielding their treasures and children laughing in delight. It is so perfectly normal that Dan's heart hurts.

He shakes out a laugh that sounds a bit too wet to pass off as everything okay, so he smiles reassuringly when Phil glances at him.

"You're not fooling me," Phil says. He's pocketed his phone for now and looks back over the river before asking, "What's wrong?"

"Do you miss home?" Dan asks in lieu of actually answering the question. He's better at working through things out loud anyway.

"I miss having more than five pairs of socks," Phil quips, but his heart isn't in it. Dan didn't want to say anything, but he's been noticing the toll touring has taken on Phil. Dan blames the houseplants; Phil's constantly worrying that Hazel's forgotten to water them.

"I don't I could ever be an American." Phil hums questioningly, so Dan continues, "It's all so big, you know? And yet so much of it is the same. Like, I swear I've seen at least nine Lake Streets since we got here."

"It's like you can go as far as you want, but you never really get anywhere."

"Exactly." When Dan leans back onto the bench, it's directly into a puddle. As he wipes his hand off on his jeans, he has to laugh a little: some things never change.

"It must be nice if you're from here, though," Phil continues, staring up at the leaves above them. "No matter how far you go, there's always gonna be something familiar."

"Meanwhile back home, at least you're never too far from the familiar."

Phil smiles at him then, warm but pensive. "I think you're familiar."

There's a joke on the tip of his tongue about black cats and witches, but Dan can't bring himself to say it. Something about the little grove of little trees and being above everything else makes it feel sacred, magical in a way that can't be touched, like bubbles that land on grass but never pop. It's a fragile feeling, yes, but not an unfamiliar one. It happens a lot around Phil.

So Dan thinks about how he's never known another person like he knows Phil, never been able to answer questions about someone else before even they know their answer, never taken into consideration the way someone else folds their t-shirts or how loud they keep the television. If someone asked him right that minute to pretend to be Phil on a phone call to his own mother, Dan could pull it off, because it was so instinctual that all it took was a matter of flipping a switch, and sometimes not even that.

"That's alright then." It's not what he means to say, but Phil gets it, and isn't that the whole point?

**Author's Note:**

> the park they go to is [gold medal park](http://bit.ly/1XkXcNE) but i invented the bench because i didn't want them to have to sit in the rain, poor babies.
> 
> sorry they don't talk a lot in this, i'm a little rusty w/ their voices lmao. hope u liked it tho!!!
> 
> tumblr @[dweebhowell](http://dweebhowell.tumblr.com)


End file.
